


The Epic Backstory

by moonlit_wings



Series: Becoming the Mask DVD Bonus Features [6]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Alternate History, Backstory, Changeling Jim Lake Jr, Gen, Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26197228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlit_wings/pseuds/moonlit_wings
Summary: Since I'm not using the history as posited inWizardsfor the timeline inBecoming The Mask, I've outlined how things went instead.New origins for where "the Trollhunter" job came from! Different orders and time periods for significant events! Spoilers for characters and events that haven't been explored in the main fic yet!(May be subject to change based on whatever happens in the movie and if I change my mind about something in the fanfic.)
Series: Becoming the Mask DVD Bonus Features [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1269581
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	The Epic Backstory

**Eight million years ago**  
First trollish writing appears. Trolls have culture and oral history prior to this point, but this was when literacy became a thing; or at least, the earliest written documents that survive to the present day can be dated back to this time.

Mentions of ‘Trollhunters’ appear in these early writings. ‘Troll’ can be used to mean ‘a member of the species’ but it can also be used to mean ‘a member of a particular tribe’. 

Hunter Trolls are nomadic and travel alone or in small bands between various tribes, fighting monsters like Nyarlagroths. 

Being a Hunter is a self-appointed job. There can, therefore, be more than one Trollhunter at a time, but there can also be periods without any active Trollhunters. 

The Trollhunters are mostly young adventurers who want to see the world and fight things. 

Some Trollhunters are trolls who were banished from their home tribes, and are taking the only job that allows them to continue interacting with other trolls. 

Some are basically running protection rackets. (“Nice cave you have here. Be a shame if it got infested with monsters.”) These Hunters usually get taken down at some point by another Trollhunter who isn’t running a protection racket and takes offense at the Hunter reputation being besmirched. 

Because Trollhunters travel between different tribes, sometimes they get commissioned to escort other travelers, or go to dangerous places and retrieve magical/medical ingredients. 

Trollhunters begin to be called upon to mediate inter-tribal disputes; if there is a Trollhunter who has saved both tribes involved in said dispute, they are therefore a neutral party that both sides are willing to trust.

 **Six million years ago**  
Mediating inter-tribal disputes becomes an expected part of the Trollhunter job, even if they’ve never dealt with either tribe before.

* * *

It becomes a faux pas for a Trollhunter to try and refuse a request for aid.

Because most of these jobs are dangerous, a member of one Trollhunter band invents a grit-shaka, a talisman that takes away fear. The resulting recklessness proves fatal for almost every wearer. 

This is the origin of both “Trollhunting Rule Number One, always be afraid”, and the expression “the fearless are the first to die”.

That band of Trollhunters decides to start calling themselves Ga-Huels (“adventurers” in archaic trollish) instead of Trollhunters, so other trolls will stop asking them favours when the band passes through their territory.

 **Four million years ago**  
The Ga-Huels expand enough to become a tribe in their own right. They continue to be nomadic rather than permanently settling somewhere. 

Their typical pattern is to move into another tribe’s territory, conquer the locals, demand tribute while there, and then move on to the next place.

* * *

The Decimaar Blade is invented and magically bound to the Ga-Huel leader. (Decimaar means “authority” in archaic trollish.) 

It can be wielded by any member of the tribe, and only by members of the tribe, but only summoned or dissipated by the leader. The link will be passed down to anyone who manages to kill the leader using the Decimaar Blade. If the leader dies another way, the sword chooses its own successor. 

The sword also gives its wielder the ability to look into people’s minds, intended to give the wielder a heads-up to sneak attacks. The “mind control” feature came about as an accidental overload of this power. 

**One million years ago**  
The Ga-Huel officially start referring to their leader as a Warlord.

 **500-300 thousand years ago, by current estimate based on fossil evidence**  
_Homo sapiens_ diverges from other hominids.

 **Six thousand years ago/circa 4000 BCE**  
Trolls discover that there is a surface, rather than the whole universe being rocks and caves and magma.

* * *

Quag, of the Wumpa tribe, meets and befriends Merlin and Morgana. They study magic from each other. Morgana starts doing research into how to allow trolls to withstand sunlight, on the theory that this could also enhance her Shadow Magic, which is weakened at certain times of day.

Some of the Wumpa tribe form a settlement on the surface, under the leadership of Quag (now their king), and rename themselves the Quagawumps.

* * *

More trolls begin visiting the surface after discovering how tasty the animals are. Most trolls do not yet distinguish between humans and any other surface animal.

The Ga-Huels begin actively displacing trolls with territories near the surface, in the interests of claiming the best bases of operation for hunting parties. They start to be referred to as Gumm-Gumms.

“The fearless are the first to die” starts to be used as a taunt instead of strategic advice, becoming “the brave are often first to die”.

Gunmar is born and quickly becomes known as a powerful and dangerous wizard. He kills King Quag when the Ga-Huel attempt to conquer the swamp.

* * *

Merlin learns (or remembers, from conversations with Quag) that a Trollhunter cannot refuse a call for help. He approaches the only active Trollhunter of the time, Gorgus the Great, to ask her to protect humans from Gumm-Gumms.

Merlin builds the Amulet of Daylight. Designing and assembling it takes a few decades. 

Because he doesn’t have Shadow Magic, which is necessary to allow trolls to touch sunlight, he cuts off Morgana’s hand and forearm to melt down and infuse into the metal. 

Tethering the artifact to one person at a time and letting it choose a ‘worthy successor’ is based on the enchantment structure of the Decimaar Blade. 

Merlin adds a few safety features, such as the amulet not choosing whoever killed its last bearer as the new bearer; no one being able to wield the sword except for the summoner; and it being possible to steal the Amulet entirely (in case he ever had to take it back from the Trollhunter). 

He also adds a language translation enchantment, so the troll who carries the Amulet can talk to humans. 

Gorgus accepts the weapon and armour, but continues referring to herself as a ‘Trollhunter’ rather than ‘the Champion of Daylight’.

* * *

Morgana’s research into how trolls work allows her to create an animate stone prosthesis for herself. She swears revenge on Merlin.

 **Five thousand years ago/circa 3000 BCE**  
Spar the Spiteful is the called as the second Champion of Daylight. He wasn’t a Trollhunter before that and does not want the job, but is magically stuck with it. 

Gorgus is annoyed at Merlin for not telling her that her soul would be trapped in the Amulet to watch over and occasionally advise her successor. It is unclear if Merlin knew this would happen but she suspects he did. 

Spar meets an Akiridion, on Earth for reasons unspecified. He helps jump-start her spaceship by pushing it off a cliff after the local humans throw a spear through the Daxial Array. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, _The Felled_.)

* * *

The Gumm-Gumms begin to use the Darklands as a permanent base of operations, with Killahead Bridge giving them rapid access to the surface. Killahead is one of the earliest examples of trolls using bridges as portals.

* * *

Morgana experiments with transmuting stone to flesh and back again. She invents Creeper’s Sun toxin and its antidote during these experiments. 

**2000 BCE**  
In the course of her experiments, Morgana finds a way to 'pause’ the development flesh or living stone, and to restart the process later. 

(This is eventually used to keep the Familiars from aging in the Darklands, and the Changelings from aging until they get Familiars.) 

She uses this to give herself eternal youth on top of her wizardly longevity.

* * *

Humans begin launching counter-attacks at the less dangerous troll communities on the surface, intended as retaliation against the Gumm-Gumm raids. 

Even though trolls can now tell humans are capable of more complex reasoning than most other surface animals, these attacks encourage anti-human sentiments, so _eating_ humans remains socially acceptable even among troll tribes that don’t actively _hunt_ them.

 **1000 BCE**  
Morgana begins to consider the merits of an Eternal Night, which would allow her to access her full level of power at any time rather than the fluctuations in power that the day-night cycle brings. 

**0 BCE/CE**  
Maddrux the Many becomes the Trollhunter. There have been a few others between Spar and Maddrux. By this point it is more-or-less forgotten that ‘Trollhunter’ was once a job title that had nothing to do with the Amulet of Daylight.

 **300 CE**  
Orlagk the Oppressor becomes the Gumm-Gumm Warlord and names the wizard Gunmar the Skullcrusher as his top general.

 **400 CE**  
Maddrux the Many dies and is succeeded as Trollhunter by Araknak the Agile.

 **Late 400s-early 500s, the time period to which Arthurian legend dates back:**  
Rise and fall of Camelot.

 **500 CE**  
Morgana proposes an alliance to the Gumm-Gumms, giving them magical items and cutting them in on her ‘Eternal Night’ plan, in exchange for them giving her trolls to experiment on.

 **530 CE**  
Deya is born. 

**600 CE**  
A plague ravages Deya’s village. Her newly-hatched brother is one of the dead. The villagers are weak when humans attack, and most of the surviving trolls are killed. 

Deya survives the plague and the raid. Since she is small and ‘harmless’ at the time, she is taken by the humans, who rename her ‘Callista’ and raise her as an exotic pet. 

She picks up their language, but her ability to speak is seen as a charming quirk rather than a sign of intelligence. 

**800 CE**  
‘Callista’ runs away and tries to find more trolls.

* * *

Vendel is born.

 **900 CE**  
‘Callista’ finally meets other trolls for the first time since she was in her eighties (the trollish equivalent of a human 5-year-old). Her clumsiness with social niceties gets her the nickname ‘Calamity’. 

A series of negative coincidences happen in various places she tries to stay, and she gets a reputation among other trolls for being bad luck. The nickname ‘Calamity’ gradually becomes a more deliberate insult.

 **Mid to late 1100s**  
Usurna and Gunmar secretly make an alliance.

* * *

Merlin meets a young con artist named Hisirdoux Casperan, realizes the boy has actual magic as well as slight-of-hand, and takes him on as an apprentice.

* * *

Although eating humans is still not something most trolls think is _morally_ a big deal, it’s also starting to be more trouble than it’s worth, so avoiding humans becomes more typical. 

**Early 1200s**  
Usurna becomes Queen of the Krubera.

* * *

A troll scholar named Bodus attempts to study the Gumm-Gumms, creating _The Book Of Ga-Huel_. He learns some old Ga-Huel magic during his work to make his book self-update as their tribe’s history progresses. Due to overall troll sentiments about Gumm-Gumms, Bodus himself becomes feared and distrusted.

 **1200-1300**  
AAARRRGGHH and Stricklander are born (exact dates undecided) and taken by the Gumm-Gumms. AAARRRGGHH is raised as a soldier and Stricklander becomes one of the first successful Changelings. 

**Mid 1200s**  
The Trollhunter, Tellad-Urr the Triumphant, cracks under the never-ending demands placed on Trollhunters to resolve every petty little problem, and starts working with the Gumm-Gumms, becoming known as Tellad-Urr the Terrible.

 **1297**  
Angor Rot asks Morgana for help in protecting his village from the Gumm-Gumms. Morgana responds by taking Angor’s soul and magically enslaving him. She also magically pauses his aging, so he’ll perpetually be in his prime while hunting down the Trollhunters. 

**1350s**  
Angor Rot kills Tellad-Urr the Terrible and absorbs his soul. 

**1360s**  
Gogun the Gentle, the Trollhunter after Tellad-Urr, dies peacefully in his sleep. Gogun is the first Champion of Daylight not to die in combat.

 **1380s**  
Angor Rot kills his second Trollhunter.

* * *

Deya learns her birth name when she is called by the Amulet. Trolls are still not particularly welcoming of her, but they stop actively driving her away. 

**Early 1400s**  
Blinky is born. (Exact date undecided, but he is in his 600s in the present day.)

* * *

Skarlagk, daughter of Orlagk, is also born.

* * *

Enough Changelings exist that the Janus Order is formed. 

**Mid 1400s**  
Testing the limits of how mutable she can make living stone, Morgana creates the first Polymorphs; Changelings who do not need a Familiar to take on human form. Because this is more difficult and has a higher death rate than making ‘standard’ Changelings, she only makes a few of them. 

**Late 1400s**  
Deya goes on her quest to punch Merlin in the face for being chronically cryptic. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, _The Felled_.)

* * *

Non-Gumm-Gumm trolls learn that Changelings exist. Gaggletacks are discovered. 

Trolls start making more active efforts to conceal their existence from humans, partly to avoid encounters with Changelings and partly because human weaponry continues to improve.

 **Early 1500s**  
Gunmar kills Orlagk and becomes the new Gumm-Gumm Warlord. 

Gunmar loses his eye in the fight. Merlin has a vision of the Triumbric Stones being the key to defeating Gunmar, so he gathers them and hides them in places he thinks will be safe until he figures out how exactly that will work. 

AAARRRGGHH internally questions how safe it is to remain on Gunmar’s side, since AAARRRGGHH is now at the same rank Gunmar was before overthrowing Orlagk and therefore Gunmar might start viewing AAARRRGGHH with suspicion. 

**Mid 1500s**  
Skarlagk the Scorned begins recruiting Gumm-Gumms for a coup, intending to kill and replace Gunmar to avenge her father.

* * *

Jim, Nomura, and Not Enrique are born, kidnapped, and made into Changelings. (Nomura is older than the boys, but only by about twenty years, which isn’t much for trolls.)

* * *

Bular is also born.

* * *

The Dishonourable Bodus learns of the Triumbric Stones and records that there is a way to defeat Gunmar. Stories about the hypothetical ‘Eclipse Sword’ begin to spread. Gunmar has Bodus and his students tracked down and killed, and all found copies of his work destroyed.

After burning Bodus’ _Final Testament_ , Stricklander reads and memorizes the riddle about where to find the “three forces elemental” which make up “a shadow’s bane”.

Deya hears that Merlin found a potential way to defeat Gunmar and is annoyed that he hasn’t told her about it, but right now she doesn’t have time to track the wizard down and punch him again.

 **1582**  
The Gregorian calendar is established.

 **Late 1500s**  
AAARRRGGHH deserts the Gumm-Gumms. To prove himself trustworthy to Deya, he gives her crucial information about the location and function of Killahead Bridge, the Darklands’ main access point to the surface.

Anticipating an attack after AAARRRGGHH’s desertion, Gunmar leaves Bular in the care of the Janus Order.

Deya seals the Gumm-Gumms in the Darklands. 

* * *

Merlin seals Morgana in the Heartstone and decides to take a nap for the next few centuries.

 **Early 1600s**  
Morgana figures out how to siphon Merlin’s magic.

* * *

Skarlagk openly turns against Gunmar. Many Gumm-Gumms resent being trapped in the Darklands, which makes recruitment easier for her. 

Gunmar begins mind-controlling more and more of his soldiers. This increases the rate of desertion among those not being mind-controlled.

* * *

The Janus Order beings trying to gather and rebuild Killahead Bridge.

 **1620**  
The Mayflower sets sail, with trolls stowing away ... somehow.

 **1630s**  
The trolls find the Heartstone and settle under what will become Arcadia Oaks. 

Birthstones which were carried along during the migration begin to hatch. Draal is one of the first trolls born in Heartstone Trollmarket.

* * *

AAARRRGGHH makes contact with the Krubera for the first time since his infancy.

* * *

Dictatious, who was too close to the bridge and pulled into the Darklands by accident, is found by Gunmar’s forces. He swears loyalty to Gunmar to avoid being mind-controlled or killed. 

Gunmar decides that, if Dictatious was able to survive the Darklands alone for as long as he did, he must have potential and be worth keeping around.

* * *

At the age of 1100, Deya the Deliverer is killed by Bular.

* * *

Unkar the Unfortunate is called as the Trollhunter and killed by Angor Rot before Bular even knows who the new Trollhunter is. 

**Late 1600s**  
Unkar’s successor is also killed by Angor Rot, but successfully traps him before dying.

* * *

Their successor is killed by Bular, who assumes the Trollhunter he just killed was Deya’s successor.

* * *

On Gunmar’s orders, as conveyed through a Fetch, Usurna makes contact with a few Changelings, who begin spying on trolls instead of humans and reporting to her instead of Bular. 

Gunmar’s eye is passed from Usurna to the Changelings to the Janus Order.

The head of the Janus Order is aware that there’s at least one non-Changeling troll besides Bular who still serves Gunmar but isn’t in the Darklands. The head does not know Usurna’s name and has never met her in person.

Bular does know Usurna’s identity, but has never had the opportunity to meet her in person.

* * *

Through Usurna, who got the information from AAARRRRGGHH when he told the Krubera about how he left the Gumm-Gumms, the Janus Order learns that Killahead Bridge is now ‘locked’ by the Amulet of Daylight, and the Amulet will be necessary to reopen it. 

Stricklander begins building a fake Amulet on the hypothesis it can work as a ‘lock pick’.

 **1700s**  
A branch of the Janus Order located in New Jersey discovers a Heartstone. Rather than turning it over to Gunmar, they desert as a whole, making it look like humans discovered them and the Changelings gutted the base to destroy any evidence of what they were doing before getting wiped out. 

The Changeling deserters rename their group the Jersey Devils, after the local legend.

 **1850**  
California becomes a state.

* * *

Kanjigar becomes the Trollhunter.

* * *

Stricklander becomes the leader of the Janus Order.

 **1859**  
Nomura is assigned to a Familiar. She will later resent that she “just missed” the Renaissance. 

**1875**  
El Rancho Arcadia, the town that will become Arcadia Oaks, is founded. (Year and original town name seen on a sign on the final page of the spin-off comic _The Secret History Of Trollkind_.)

 **1876**  
Nomura, with her Familiar’s family, attends the first ever performance of _Peer Gynt_.

 **1877**  
Phonographs are invented. Stricklander buys one for personal use and Morgana communicates with him through it. All Janus Order bases are equipped with phonographs as soon as possible. 

**1900**  
Nomura and Draal meet and attempt to date. 

**1903**  
The Janus Order finds out Nomura has an ‘in’ with the Trollhunter’s son and she is instructed to try and steal the Amulet. Strickler gives Nomura the fake Amulet in case she can swap it for the real one.

* * *

Nancy not-Domzalski-yet is born.

 **1909**  
Carla Fontaine, leader of the Jersey Devils, accidentally encounters her ex-lover Tiffany Archenn, who is still in the Janus Order and thought Carla was dead. Luckily their relationship ended on good terms, so Tiffany is willing to keep Carla’s survival a secret and Carla is willing to accept her promise. 

**1914-1918**  
International warfare erupts, which will come to be known as ‘World War One’ after humans have a second one; at the time it is called ‘The Great War’ and ‘The War To End All Wars’. 

Teenage Nancy probably-not-Domzalski-yet acts as a spy near the end of this war, taking advantage of her youth to avoid suspicion while running information.

 **1920s**  
Draal figures out Nomura is a Changeling but doesn’t let her know he’s figured it out. He starts “sneakily” trying to convince her to change sides, which gives away that he knows.

Nomura gives Draal a grit-shaka, expecting him to do something stupid under its influence that can be used to lure Kanjigar into a trap.

Things end badly, but surprisingly no one actually dies in the fallout. Draal sees Nomura escape, but does not correct his father when Kanjigar assumes she’s dead. 

Trollmarket knows there was a Changeling trying to get in, but are under the impression Nomura was on her own, and that therefore they don’t need to worry about more Changelings. 

**Early 1950s**  
Dr Bernie Sturges begins working at Area 49-B, keeping an eye on what the humans are up to there on behalf of the Janus Order.

* * *

Nancy Domzalski has a surprise pregnancy. She and her husband Horace name their son Ralph. 

**1970s**  
Barbara is born. (Exact date undecided, but she’s in her mid-to-late twenties when she has her son.)

 **Early to mid 1990s**  
Barbara meets James Lake at college. They marry shortly after graduation. 

**Late 1990s**  
Bernie Sturges is discharged from Area 49-B for questioning policy decisions one too many times. They remain under surveillance because they know so much classified information, and are suspected of being involved in Stuart of Durio’s escape. (Bernie was not involved in that escape but did regularly object to the base’s treatment of prisoners.)

* * *

After several years of working as a painter, Barbara decides to go back to school to become a doctor. 

James decides to get Barbara pregnant, expecting her to change her mind about going back to school once they have a baby, with the reasoning that “this whole ‘doctor’ thing is just because she wants someone to look after,” and “if I ask her not to go back to school, then I’m the asshole, so she needs to feel like it was her own idea.”

 **2000**  
James Lake Junior is born. Three months later, he is swapped for a Changeling who comes to be known as ‘Jim’.

 **2001**  
Mary Wang’s parents, Thomas and Laurel (names inspired by the character’s voice actress, Lauren Tom), get divorced because they have incompatible money-management techniques.

Laurel is very cautious with spending and meticulous about saving, believing in putting money aside for a rainy day; Thomas expected her to "be less of a penny-pincher" after they got married and pooled their resources.

Thomas is very relaxed about money, believing if you have it then you might as well enjoy it; Laurel expected him to "be less of a spendthrift" once they got married and had a fiscal responsibility to each other as well as themselves.

Once their finances are untangled, they get along much better, and the divorce is a friendly one.

 **2002**  
Ralph Domzalski and his wife win the state lottery. They put most of the money into savings but also decide to go on a cruise around the world, leaving their two-year-old son Tobias in the care of Ralph’s mother. They are lost at sea during a storm. 

**2003**  
Nancy Domzalski turns 100 years old.

 **2004**  
Darci Scott tells her parents she feels more like a girl than a boy. They do some talking with her and some research on their own, and help her to transition. 

**2005**  
Nancy and Tobias Domzalski move into the house across the street from the Lakes. Jim befriends Toby mostly because it draws attention from concerned adults if a child appears to have no friends.

* * *

James Lake Senior abandons his wife and son. 

Several months later, Jim brings the unassembled bike kit James gave him to the Janus Order base and throws the pieces through the Fetch.

* * *

Nancy sets Toby up with regular therapy appointments with Dr Tiffany Archenn, because Nancy believes in preventative maintenance as part of mental health.

* * *

Mary Wang’s mother remarries. Premarital counselling happens this time around to make sure they're on the same page about things like money. She and her wife, Jennifer Smith, each leave their names unchanged. 

Jennifer Smith, a Changeling, puts heavy-duty protection spells on every building where her wife and stepdaughter spend a significant amount of time and any items they frequently have with them. The spells are applied in such a way that you have to be checking for protection spells (or set them off) in order to notice them.

 **2006**  
Jim realizes he genuinely cares about Toby, and gives him a spot on Jim’s mental list of “humans to try keeping alive”.

* * *

Barbara starts learning krav maga. In these classes, she meets and befriends Zelda Nomura.

 **2008**  
Bernie has been away from Area 49-B long enough that the surveillance is beginning to slack off.

 **2012**  
Since James Lake Senior has been “missing” for seven years, Jim is able to have him declared legally dead.

* * *

Barbara graduates medical school and becomes an emergency room trauma surgeon.

 **Summer 2015**  
Since Mary is about to start high school, her parents finally agree to let her have a cellphone. Jennifer adds yet another protection spell to the device; it’s a good anchor since Mary will presumably have it with her at all times.

* * *

Claire and Jim both attend a fundraiser for Arcadia's hospital. Claire sees Jim dancing with Barbara and is charmed and intrigued at the sight of a boy her age who is unembarrassed to dance with his mother in public. (Idea taken from the first spin-off novel, _The Adventure Begins_.)

 **September 2015 - June 2016**  
Toby develops a friendly acquaintanceship with Eli Pepperjack. 

Jim is polite, in the interests of not driving Toby away by preventing him from having other friends, but wary because of Eli’s conviction there is something supernatural in Arcadia and his determination to uncover it. 

Eli picks up that he is more ‘tolerated’ by Jim than ‘liked’, which makes Eli feel awkward and suspect Toby feels the same way and is just better at hiding it. Toby and Eli never progress past “friendly acquaintances” into “friends”.

* * *

Jim and Claire are partnered in several school projects. Like Toby and Eli, they become friendly acquaintances. Jim makes a note of how often and how fondly Claire speaks of her little brother once Enrique is born.

 **August 2016**  
Bernie Sturges fakes the death of their current human identity and temporarily moves into the Janus Order base while setting up a new one. (Sometimes Changelings have overlaps or gaps between identities, to muddy the trail if someone tries to track them.)

 **September 2016**  
Kanjigar dies. Jim is called as the Trollhunter. Fanfic begins at this point.


End file.
